Social media has highlighted sexual harassment in places of work, but there’s little recourse for many who work in houses
NEW DELHI: It’s been over 10 years but Nisha (name changed) nonetheless remembers the discomfort of the gaze of her employer’s getting old father as she went about doing household chores. She referred to as him ‘dadaji’ (grandfather) but that did not deter him from looking to dangle her hand. He would wander into her room, and use his age as an excuse to seek assistance from the younger home employee.
Nisha used to be then in her early 20s. She now knows that used to be workplace sexual harassment, but the wisdom alone does no longer assist lakhs of women like her in the unorganised sector who are not able to do so.
The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 supplies for local proceedings committees at the district level for staff from the unorganised sector. Domestic employees neither know of this provision nor how to achieve authorities. Their biggest fear is counter allegations of theft which leads to loss of livelihood.
As the #MeToo movement brings the problem of workplace safety to the fore, the rights of the lakhs of women, maximum of them migrants from rural India’s poverty-stricken areas who work in city houses as home employees, have also come into focus.
Anita Yadav, founder of Mahila Kamgar Sangathan in Gurgaon, says maximum home employees don't discuss harassment but only record attack, rape and compelled labour. The organisation, which has round 7,000 home employees as contributors, has just lately started work on awareness construction about sexual harassment.
Nisha, who is now a part of this awareness power with home employees, says she used to be 20 when she got here to Delhi from a village in Jharkhand’s Gumla district in 2003. A placement agency were given her the activity. “I didn’t like the grandfather’s behaviour, but did not know it used to be sexual harassment,” she says. When the man began coming into her room, Nisha went to his daughter-in-law. “I had the braveness to bitch only because I knew she did not like him,” she says.
A 2012 poll through Oxfam India discovered that the ladies maximum vulnerable to workplace harassment are labourers (29%), home employees (23%), and small-scale manufacturing unit employees (16%).
Sanjay Kumar, India director of Harvard’s Mittal Institute, says there's a wish to create deterrence at the group level. “Residents’ welfare associations can start through growing committees for home employees to record instances. These can be related to district authorities the place the local proceedings committees must be arrange,” he says.
Ravi Kant, president of voluntary organisation Shakti Vahini, says implementing the regulation for the unorganised sector has been dismal. “We will ask the federal government to create awareness thru commercials,” he says. “Regulating placement companies is critical to defining the employer-employee courting,” he says.
NEW DELHI: It’s been over 10 years but Nisha (name changed) nonetheless remembers the discomfort of the gaze of her employer’s getting old father as she went about doing household chores. She referred to as him ‘dadaji’ (grandfather) but that did not deter him from looking to dangle her hand. He would wander into her room, and use his age as an excuse to seek assistance from the younger home employee.
Nisha used to be then in her early 20s. She now knows that used to be workplace sexual harassment, but the wisdom alone does no longer assist lakhs of women like her in the unorganised sector who are not able to do so.
The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 supplies for local proceedings committees at the district level for staff from the unorganised sector. Domestic employees neither know of this provision nor how to achieve authorities. Their biggest fear is counter allegations of theft which leads to loss of livelihood.
As the #MeToo movement brings the problem of workplace safety to the fore, the rights of the lakhs of women, maximum of them migrants from rural India’s poverty-stricken areas who work in city houses as home employees, have also come into focus.
Anita Yadav, founder of Mahila Kamgar Sangathan in Gurgaon, says maximum home employees don't discuss harassment but only record attack, rape and compelled labour. The organisation, which has round 7,000 home employees as contributors, has just lately started work on awareness construction about sexual harassment.
Nisha, who is now a part of this awareness power with home employees, says she used to be 20 when she got here to Delhi from a village in Jharkhand’s Gumla district in 2003. A placement agency were given her the activity. “I didn’t like the grandfather’s behaviour, but did not know it used to be sexual harassment,” she says. When the man began coming into her room, Nisha went to his daughter-in-law. “I had the braveness to bitch only because I knew she did not like him,” she says.
A 2012 poll through Oxfam India discovered that the ladies maximum vulnerable to workplace harassment are labourers (29%), home employees (23%), and small-scale manufacturing unit employees (16%).
Sanjay Kumar, India director of Harvard’s Mittal Institute, says there's a wish to create deterrence at the group level. “Residents’ welfare associations can start through growing committees for home employees to record instances. These can be related to district authorities the place the local proceedings committees must be arrange,” he says.
Ravi Kant, president of voluntary organisation Shakti Vahini, says implementing the regulation for the unorganised sector has been dismal. “We will ask the federal government to create awareness thru commercials,” he says. “Regulating placement companies is critical to defining the employer-employee courting,” he says.
Why this #MeToo doesn’t make it to the headlines
![Why this #MeToo doesn’t make it to the headlines]()
Reviewed by Kailash
on
October 15, 2018
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